


that mad world we call home

by newyorktopaloalto



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: AU scenes of canonical events, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Compliant, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Mostly Gen, Open to Interpretation, Searching Erebor for the Arkenstone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-30 23:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17233325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newyorktopaloalto/pseuds/newyorktopaloalto
Summary: Erebor has been reclaimed, Thorin hunts for the Arkenstone, and there is nothing Bilbo can do to mitigate any of their circumstances.





	that mad world we call home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vegalocity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegalocity/gifts).



> I wrote this intending for it to be canon compliant to the ending of the Hobbit, so you can take that however you'd like to. 
> 
> Don't own, so please don't sue. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

His footsteps echoed. Bilbo reckoned that they would be less likely to do so were the hall filled in such a manner that it would take much more than almost silent footfalls to linger around, stagnant in the atmosphere. A piece of rubble fell, only attached to its cracked overhang by the most minute of threads before Bilbo's presence startled its precarious ecosystem, and Bilbo kicked it away with the inside of his foot—the piece ricocheted off of a wall and hit a small pile of its brethren. Bofur's head popped through an archway and Bilbo waved away his bemusedly concerned look. Despite this reassurance, Bofur sidled the rest of his through the archway before leaning, arms crossed and posture languid, against the wall opposite Bilbo. For a moment they looked at once another before Bofur sighed, explosive and unyielding, and turned his gaze to the dusty railings and scattered mathoms. 

“Didn't get anything.” 

“Nor I.” Bilbo paused. “What of the others?” 

Bofur shrugged, tugged on the end of his left sleeve, and Bilbo watched as his mouth twisted downwards as the dwarf debated on what to say to their erstwhile burglar—he, like most of the others in the company, was blithely unawares of Bilbo's most dangerous of burglaries, and the hobbit intended to keep it that way for as long as he possibly could. 

“Pardon?” 

“There's still a pall over everything—I don't know if you can feel it, but I think,” Bofur gestured vaguely behind himself, encapsulating the dwarves around them, dispersed throughout the mountain in search of a stone worth more to their king than everything else within it, “all we can.” 

Bilbo understood what the dwarf was speaking of almost immediately and started nodding his head before the other could even finish his statement. Though their races were disparate enough for the effects of this mountain to pass through Bilbo like a chill on an already brisk winter's day, he knew that it was something entirely different for the dwarves whose mountain this desolation had been confined within. Unsure if this was the lingering effects from the dragon's tenancy or if it was nothing more than a king and company whose purpose seemed ill-fated after the taking back of their prodigal homestead, Bilbo had decided that staying reticent was the most likely of attitudes to keep him whole and hale enough to continue on in the aftermath of wherever they were headed. 

“There are convoys on their way.” 

Somewhere in the depths of the mountain, into the places that were so buried under years of detritus Bilbo found it unlikely even breathable air could survive the deluge of antiquity this long, a small crumbling of stone seemed answer enough to Bofur's statement. 

Bilbo sighed and joined the dwarf in leaning against the wall. “Of course—I'm surprised that it was not sooner than now.” 

“Nori went down the mountain; it's only a few of 'em. Most of the injured ones are in a camp further down.” 

“What are we going to do, then?” 

Bofur shifted from foot to foot and Bilbo knew that nothing good would come out of his friend's mouth—his suspicions seemed astute enough as the dwarf gave him a smile meant to be sympathetic but coming out as nothing more than a piteous grimace. 

His repeated question came out a little more desperate than Bilbo would have usually liked to admit. “What, Bofur?” 

“Balin told me to get you.” 

A pause. 

“Are you barking?” 

“I've been told that before, aye, but I'm sure you have too, Bilbo. Doesn't make Balin any less correct.” 

“He's—do you remember what happened the last time someone tried to speak with him, Bofur? Ori's nose will never be the same, and it always seemed so nice and symmetrical before.” 

The two of them took a moment to share wan smiles, Bofur twisting one of the rings he had picked up from the treasure room and Bilbo twisting his fingers around each other, having demurred the glittering jewelry he had been offered with an ease that none of them believed would come if asked for at this moment in time. 

“What about Dwalin? They're close, are they not?” 

“They're figuring out the divide between friendship and duty—we all are; we're loyal to Thorin, but we've also been on this journey for a long time. Also, as you know,” Bofur shrugged, affable and direct, “Thorin likes you more than most of us combined.” 

Bilbo blinked, once, twice, and a third time for good measure before stuttering out an 'I'm sure I haven't the foggiest of what you mean.' They were silent again then, a tension in Bilbo's shoulders as he thought about how this was not at all what he had signed up for, that he didn't have the emotional aptitude necessary to bring this dwarf king out of whatever thrall he was currently ensconced within, that he should be, soon, on his way back to the Shire so he could go about his business once more, all thoughts and notions of further adventuring firmly behind him in the knowledge of what the day-dreamings could actually bring about when all was said and done. 

But here they stood, and they both knew the truth. 

“I might understand what you mean.”

Bofur grunted an agreement, shooting a vaguely amused look down at Bilbo, who was, he was quite sure, flushing and squinting his eyes a bit in self-consternation. 

“But I'm going to be headed back west after all of this and he is to rule a kingdom, so whatever... regard... Thorin may or may not have, it wouldn't matter in the long run.

“Beside that,” he continued, aiming for amiable and hovering on disconnected, “there is every other matter to consider.” 

“Don't tell him that.” 

Bilbo shot Bofur a look, and the dwarf responded with a half smirk, “Even _I_ wouldn't put my foot up my arse in quite that spectacular of fashion.” He sighed, nudging some debris with his toes. “We have, the two of us, spoken on matters such as thus, so it's not as though he is unawares.” 

“You have?” Bofur's obvious surprise should have eased Bilbo's fears of the obvious nature of his feeling, but he was disheartened to realize that it only made him wish, a vice around his gut, that his and Thorin's endings could be anything but along separate and unequal paths.

Uncomfortable, Bilbo shrugged. Of course they had; Balin, he was sure, knew, and Dwalin as well. 

“But as I said, it doesn't matter, not for anything more than the present time.” He paused. “I will stay until I know Thorin is back to how he should be—until you all are.” 

“You can stay _and_ you can talk him outta doing something idiotic.” 

“I'm sure no one could pull off such a feat.” 

“If anyone could, burglar, it would be you.” 

It was the simplicity that made Bilbo pause. Because Bofur was correct, no matter how much Bilbo did not want him to be—no matter how much Thorin would feel the same were he in a state of mind that his focus would be attentive of such things. 

“I, of course, cannot give you any guarantee.” 

“We're not expecting any, Bilbo.” A beat, two, three, and Bofur clapped Bilbo, hard, on the shoulder, a gratefulness that Bilbo was sure echoed through the veins of the company in his next words. “Balin will speak with you first.” 

“Where is he?” 

“One of the battlements.” 

“And where is Thorin?” 

“Where do you think?” 

“Okay, then.

“Have Óin ready to receive me.” Bilbo gave Bofur a weak smile, the thread of a joke in his tone. “Only as a precaution.” 

“To hoping.” 

A grimace and Bilbo exited swiftly, a soft fall of rubble following in his wake—the emptiness of the mountain was never more obvious than with thirteen dwarves and a hobbit as its only inhabitants, all of whom were waiting for the sharp sword or the long fall and striving for glory.

* * *

“Are you aware of what is happening?” 

Balin was facing outwards against the battlements, a biting wind taking up the crushed rubble into currents that fell back to the ground with a smattering of sound no more than a rustling of autumn leaves, clinging to branches by an infinitesimal margin. Taking care not to disturb the eddies of the vestiges of a hurried, desperate exodus, Bilbo maneuvered himself next to the dwarf, unable not to notice the hollowed-out, almost viscerally resigned expression on his face. Bilbo looked outwards as well, the desolation—both old and new—stark against the blood orange of the setting sun, hazy purples fading into indigo far off to the east but encroaching ever closer until night would come upon them, for them in the mountain hardly a respite but to doze off before being awakened to dig deeper into the heart of the treasure. 

“It has been happening since ere we stepped foot in this place—the sight enough for our hearts to crack open with a desire long since suppressed by the years of toil. Our king, suffering the slings and arrows of tender misfortune, is also more affected by the faults that plague houses such as his. Thus, he will not see to reason, for reason is elusive to him—reason has been as such since our journey became more than the wanderings of the dispossessed.”

“A covetous nature beyond what the dragon could even attain.” 

“Yes, burglar. That madness which wrought his lineage, what Thorin had thought to prevent through foreknowledge and mental acuity, has come for him all the same.

“He is searching for,” Balin paused to look at Bilbo out of the corner of his eyes, “the Arkenstone, of course, that prize jewel which shows dominion over the throne of Erebor to all who might doubt or demure.” 

“I am afraid,” Bilbo looked at Balin, who met his gaze with an inscrutable one of his own—Bilbo swallowed, the weight of Balin's gaze heavier than the weight in his pocket, “of what will happen should the stone be found.”

Balin's gaze sharpened and there was a moment when Bilbo could see the other going for his weapon, a snarl beginning to overtake the dwarf's face, before he found himself again. Placid, then and hands physically unclenching themselves, he answered. 

“It would just become a different sort of greed—defensive instead of frenetic, but fanatical all the same. Unless something can be done, he is destined to die the same as his his fore-bearers—mad and still wanting.” 

Bilbo leaned against one of the balconies, making sure the stone was steady before he put his weight on his elbows to look at the valley below them. Fires, small and dim, met his line of sight, and though he could not see the mounted men and elves, he knew they were on their way. 

“There is—”

“I am aware, master Baggins.”

“And am I, then, to convince Thorin that the best way forward is through the release of his treasure?” 

“Yes.” 

A scoff interrupted whatever else Balin was going to say, and Bilbo shook his head, resigned with Balin in much the same way the dwarf was resigned with him; they would not be able to change one another's perspective in this matter, but one of them would have to be forced to bend to the other's will. 

“Then I shall endeavor to try.” 

“Burglar.” The word meant something more when both he and Balin knew what he was hiding in his pocket. 

He paused. “Yes, Balin?” 

“Be careful.”

"I'm afraid, Balin, not a one of us can heed that."

* * *

Thorin was unusually still, the flickering darkness of the candlelight illuminating against the weighted accouterments that the dwarf king wore, and he did not even move when Bilbo wended his way through the small piles of discarded treasure, glittering where they lay on their ends, toppled over in the longing for something unconquerable. He looked up, gaze dark and heavy—a slow, almost sweet curdling of milk or the bruises under the eyes of the fevered, insistent and desirous—only when Bilbo cleared his throat, and even then taking more time than comfortable for his gaze to drag itself fully out of the recesses of whatever his mind was conjuring. 

“Burglar,” he said, voice low and graveled, beckoning Bilbo closer with a twitch of his fingertips—Bilbo found himself hasty to comply, tripping over a small stack of coin in his motions; Thorin did not even flinch at the sound, just bared his teeth in what might be amusement were it not tinged with a regal mockery, mad and accustomed to its wont. 

“What news have you, then?”

“I would like to speak with you, Thorin, if you have the time.” 

“Have you found the stone?” 

“No.” 

A heavy thump thwarted whatever Bilbo was to say, and he closed his mouth shut with a snap, watching the king warily as he stood in a haste that flung whatever gold detritus close by away from him, a whirlwind of dwarf that loomed, bulky and unyielding, over him. Straightening his shoulders to no avail—Thorin grinned, all teeth and derision at Bilbo's attempt—he tried to stand against the obstinate royal. 

“Then you have nothing to say, hobbit.” The king took a breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as though his own anger tired him, and after a moment waved him off. “Now leave.” 

“Thorin, I must speak with you.” 

“What?” 

Bilbo ignored that the question was snapped, taking whatever loophole the other would give him and deciding that soldering on despite the dwarf's contrived patience was better than turning away due to the unknown of what might happen to him should he continue forth with this idiotic venture. His nose, he feared, would never be the same—Bilbo was never able to stay out of physical confrontation, despite his fervent hopes and desires for once to be spared. 

“Thorin, tomorrow Bard and those from Laketown will be here for what was promised to them—the elves from the Mirkwood will be in attendance as well.” 

On a normal occasion, Bilbo would have employed some sort of tact, but the king's gaze had already been brought to inattention to his own internal troubles, and Bilbo was in doubt that he would be able to keep Thorin away from his obsession for much longer. 

“What promise? They will receive nothing.” 

“Thorin.” Despite the tightening of Thorin's mouth, the crease in his forehead, Bilbo placed his hand on the dwarf's forearm, the pressure both a placation and a warning. “These things they ask for are nothing to you but everything to them.” 

“And what of the elves?” 

Bilbo shook his head. “Negotiations can be considered, I am sure. But the men displaced by our own reclamation at least deserve this compensation.” A pause. “You agreed previously.” 

“I agreed to many things I now think insipid, Bilbo.” Thorin sighed as though Bilbo did not quite understand the intricacies of whatever mind-games the king was only playing with himself—the others having had given up when it became obvious the mountain, so to speak, would not come to them. “We were denied even the most basic of comforts when the desolation almost killed us all—my people made their way through hardship and toil and indignity.” 

He snorted, as though disgusted at even the thought of succor. “They will prevail or they will not—my aid is no more.” 

For a moment Bilbo thought that he had, too, gone mad. “Your aid never was, Thorin!” 

Knowing it was the wrong thing to say even before he said it didn't stop the words from piercing the air between them, frigid and assailable. 

“Did I not aid you?” The king was too within himself to even raise his voice—low and dark and dripping into the darkness around them—and Bilbo knew this conversation was lost, that every inch gained would be just another lost as he turned away and Thorin was consumed fully once more, gilt and glitter and heavy gold. 

“That is a different matter entirely, Thorin Oakenshield, and I have aided you such the same.” 

He knew the fight was already over, that he had lost and that nothing would come of the precarious detente of the three races plagued by decades of desolation, but Bilbo also knew that another moment with Thorin focused on something other than his stone was another moment the madness, the unraveling of a king, was held at bay. 

Thorin snorted, affronted at the thought of needing to be saved, but his posture loosened by a fraction—Bilbo's own nerves were shot, but he felt it judicious not to let his uneasiness show—and he gestured for Bilbo to continue with whatever chatter he deemed worthy to incur upon the other. 

“Speaking of aid, it would be prudent I believe, to seek some respite, hmm? To eat and sleep and start afresh in the morning?” 

“And not find the stone before the elves try and discredit me? No, burglar, we shall work through the night.” He paused, and Bilbo knew that in Thorin's disillusion, what he would say next was more than fair to the circumstances. “You shall tell the company, however, that they are free to take a moment to seek sustenance before continuing on with their searching.” 

“That is all well and good,” Bilbo responded, “but I am speaking solely of you, not of the company. Eat something, Thorin, at the very least.” 

“I will—I would like to finish searching this area of the hall first.” 

Bilbo sighed, before nodding. “I will come back in an hour. We will talk about Bard again then.” 

“My answer will not change burglar.” 

“I know.” 

A rustling alerted Bilbo to the fact that Thorin, in a bout of frenzied motion that came through almost immediately after his concentration was no longer divided by Bilbo's conversation, had started to search once again for the Arkenstone. Soon enough, however, the dwarf would stagnate and fall into a self-reflection that Bilbo knew was opalescent, before starting the cycle over again. He lingered in the archway, not wanting to leave the dwarf to his own machinations but not particularly wanting to see another bout of piqued obsession in physical motion. Finally, Bilbo passed through to the antechamber, his gait slow and waiting for a call back that he knew he would never get—a call back that Thorin was incapable of giving, of even wanting to give—and it took him until halfway across the room to notice the guard standing watch over Thorin's increasingly frantic dealings. 

“Dwalin,” he said, weaving his way back to where the large dwarf was standing, almost motionless, against the archway leading into Thorin's hidey-hole. 

“Burglar.” 

“Have you eaten?” 

Dwalin grunted, which Bilbo took as a staunch 'no'. Fumbling around in his overcoat for a moment, he produced a hunk of cram for the dwarf to take. The guard, after a few moments of staring, unyielding, through Bilbo, relented his posture for a moment to nibble on one of the ends of the piece he had broken off. He handed the other half back to Bilbo who, after a moment of blank staring, took it with a mute acceptance and an almost vapid appreciation for Dwalin, for this bit of something that didn't make him ache with an exhaustion deeper than his very bones. 

“Thanks.” 

Bilbo nodded and bit off the end of his own piece of cram—the two of them, for the five minutes it took to eat and drink a little, listened to the mutterings and mumblings of Thorin, metallic scatterings of thrown-away valuables interspersed with the more violent shattering of delicately intricate pieces thrown against stone walls in bleak frustration. Every now and then Dwalin twitched as though barely stopping himself from entering the room in which Thoin was raging and Bilbo was hard-pressed not to say something that he would inevitably regret—he and Dwalin might be in the same boat on the same side of the river at this moment, but Bilbo didn't believe that Dwalin would ever go against Thorin Oakenshield, and Bilbo would find fault in his character should he turn so. 

After another minute or so, Bilbo turned and made his way back to another chamber, another dwarf, and another fruitless search for a stone he already had in his possession.

* * *

“Burglar.” 

The hissed moniker bled into Bilbo's hazy dreams, a dimness in these edges of the mountain even with the early light of a clear morning shining gently through vaulted skylights—this was one of the shallowest parts of the mountain, and Bilbo shuddered to think of the must, the dripping damp, the chilled darkness that would permeate the very bowels, the heart of what made Erebor more than just a name for a dead homeland. Dwarves thrived within the stone, but hobbits, or maybe just Bilbo and his growing uneasiness within tendrils of swirling greys and blacks, tended to stumble. 

He blinked up at Nori, his eyes seeking the dwarf only after making sure that the sun actually still did exist and was not just a memory of a thing long since past.

“Yes?” 

“They're going to be here soon.” 

Bilbo stifled a sigh and uncurled from where he had been nesting in the corner—his cloak and his bedroll were the only things to stave off the chill from the drafty mountain air that the dwarves seemed to find no less than invigorating. Everything around him was the same as it was before, he could hear the distant clanking of members of the company, futile in their efforts to find the Arkenstone. 

“How fares Thorin?” Bilbo asked. “Will he give them what he promised, or does he consider it more suborn now than as merely distributively just?” 

“The king is still on the hunt for his treasure and still refuses to deal with any other problems until that has been solved.” Nori paused. “I doubt he would give it regardless.

“I don't know if any of us would.” 

Bilbo pursed his lips, understanding what Nori was not saying—soon there would be a break in the winds, but in which direction it would blow, no one was quite sure yet. 

The both of them engrossed in thoughts of tenuous truces, neither Bilbo nor Nori turned to the uneven thump, clank, thump until the noise was almost upon them and they had no choice but to take note. Thorin, haggard but lit up with a fevered hyper-awareness that boded nothing well for the rest of them and for the near future, stalked into the hall the company had set themselves a camp within with a glower more interminable than he could have dared conceive not under this current thrall. Balin followed in his wake, Dwalin behind him, and on the both of them, their expressions were stone. 

“Dáin is on his way with his army from the Iron Hills—they will be here within the week.” 

It was not his place, and Bilbo knew that his speaking might only make matters worse, but like most time in his life, Bilbo's mouth went faster than his brain could catch up; blurting out a 'but why?' to what would have otherwise been empty, ostensibly respectful air, he found the gaze of every dwarf in the hall pinned him to the wall he was currently leaning against. 

“Did you believe, hobbit, that I would _not_ ensure my victory over the mountain stay in my favor? Without Dáin and the Iron Hills, it would be assuredly easy for both Men and Elf to overtake my kingdom—while my company is strong, I do not harbor doubts as to our prowess against hordes sorely outnumbering us.” 

About to answer with something scathing and wholly inappropriate, Bilbo was saved from his certain demise by a sharp tug on his sleeve, forcing him to look away from Thorin—who, to the dwarf's credit, hadn't been paying attention to Bilbo since halfway through his own small diatribe to the hobbit—and to Fíli, who was shaking his head with a vague desperation that belied his own concern for what was happening. He shut his mouth, nodded to Fíli in recognition of the lad's intervention, and, still watching Thorin pace up and down the hall out of his peripheral, sidled over to the balcony where Bifur was watching the sky with immutability. 

“Bad skies?” 

Bifur nodded before pointing to where Bilbo could still see wisps of smoke and ash, the remains of another horror upon the region, tumbling about towards the mountain. Further down, trees turning into land, Bilbo saw the tops of the heads of the men and elves marching, closer and more defined, to what would become the dwarves' stronghold until Dáin and his kin tempered the uneven numbers Thorin feared would bring about the dethroning of the King Under the Mountain. 

“How're you, then?” Bilbo asked, nodding at Bifur's 'so-so' gesture—Iglishmêk wasn't something Bilbo had been taught specifically, but some gestures throughout the races seemed sensibly standardized. 

“The elves are virulently finicky dealers—even more so because of our previous experiences in the Mirkwood. Nothing good will come of this meeting.” 

Bifur grinned and muttered something in Khuzdul; the grin wasn't all that humorous but Bilbo did not need it to be, he just needed to know that someone agreed with his assessment of the situation. They stood there for a few more moments, the both of them staring out into the lightening horizon, the sun behind the mountain casting the convoy's journey into shadowed territory—the better with which to, in a maddened state, believe their aims to also be shadowed. Bifur then, apropos of nothing except for the sound of footsteps gaining close ground on stone, left his observance of the scenery to let Balin take his place. 

“So?” It was delivered with faux insouciance because Balin knew just as well as Bilbo did what would work in the next hour—and what would have absolutely no chance of working even if given days. 

“I can attempt to speak with him again, but...” Bilbo shrugged. 

“Nothing would come of it, Burglar. We are out of options, and we must continue on with the path that has been chosen.” 

“Can you not just—?”

Balin shook his head and gripped the railing of the balcony, sighing as he too saw the visages of those who seemed destined to march against them all. 

“He is my king and in his word I must abide—I may disagree, but I will not take action upon it.” 

“Of course, I understand.” 

He knew Balin was gazing at him in what must have been barely-disguised disquiet, but Bilbo also knew what Balin had meant by his statement. If the elves, if the men of Laketown did not bear this coming cold front of relations well—and Bilbo did not see how they possibly could, given what they were promised and what they were now to be given—then something else must be done, and Bilbo was the only one in a position to actually do something about it. Not sure what, if anything, might mitigate a full-scale clash, he devoted himself to waiting until he could wait no longer. 

“I hope—well, it matters not, for it seems unlikely.”

“It all seems unlikely, burglar, but that doesn't mean it cannot happen. Despite how it seems now, I truly believe you will be back to the west in time for spring.” 

“Mayhap I'll meet your Blue Mountain folk halfway.” 

Balin nodded and they looked over to where their fate drew ever closer—kings and displaced peoples and dragons and greed all amalgamating into what could only be the penultimate moment of their accursed journey. 

A horn blew, harking the arrival of guests for Thorin Oakenshield, the King Under the Mountain. 

“Perhaps.”

**Author's Note:**

> xoxo
> 
>  
> 
> contact at newyorktopaloalto@mail.com


End file.
